Subsonic Forum

I would like to see the "Channel" concept introduced into Subsonic.
Currently, queues are fixed to the Player you are on, this is very limiting ( see viewtopic.php?f=5&t=8321&p=33753#p33753 ).
Associating a queue with a Channel offers so much more usability, and fun.

Channels are just a queue of media files with a currently playing pointer.

ABBA
Beatles <-- Current
Coldplay

When a user chooses a channel, the player starts at the Current track and the user can see tracks coming up. If the user has permission, they can add, remove and re-order tracks in the channels queue.
It's like the 'Now Playing' list is now a set of queues that a user can choose from.
The Jukebox is a channel connected to the servers soundcard output, other channels may be created and selected by one or more users on web-interface, android player etc.

What can be done with Channels:

Wellm here is a story...

John starts a Channel called "Classic Rock Songs" and is listening on his PC in the study. Joan is on a laptop in the kitchen, she sees Johns tasteful list of tunes and chooses the "Classic Rock Songs" Channel. They are now sharing the same queue of tracks and listening to the same current song.
Joan adds a few old classics to the queue, which John likes so much he moves them up the queue to play next.

Meanwhile...

Mike chooses "Classic Rock Songs", and quickly realises that this is old peoples music, so starts his own Channel called "Killa Beatz", loads a Playlist of wicked tunez into the queue and is much happier.
Pete, Mike's friend, logs in from his house and chooses "Killa Beatz" Channel as well, and adds a few tracks he knows Mike will like.

Meanwhile...

John decides to leave the house and so takes his Android phone and selects "Classic Rock Songs" Channel on that, so that he can continue to listen to the songs he and Joan chose earlier. Joan continues to add tracks to the channel.
... After walking for a while John starts to jog, and now the laid-back mood of Joans' selections are too slow, so he starts a new Channel called "Jogging Music" and loads a Playlist of up-tempo tunes into the queue of that channel. He may return to "Classic Rock Songs" channel when he gets back.

The moral of the story is...
Subsonic is more fun when multiple people use it at the same time.
People move around, and so are not tied to a single device.
Different people want different selections of music.

The Channel concept fits with all of these requirements, and adds a lot more flexibility and fun.

Great idea.

+1 Great Idea

I signed up just to +1 this.

I've only just installed subsonic so still finding my way around it, I would also find it handy to control the devices where the audio is playing out of from the 1 location.

Eg: I have my subsconic server where all my audio is obviously stored. I don't have a sound card on this, and it is stored in a remote location in the house
I then have a htpc sitting in the loungeroom

I would like to be able to play music on the HTPC by sitting on my laptop, or using iphone/android app.

Perhaps this can already be done? I will keep digging around in case I missed it. It is similar to Jukebox mode I suppose but the output coming through a machine that is not the subsconic server.

Programatically this sounds like a real clusterfuck

But Sindre is the Lizard King, He Can Code Anything

Yeah I'm sure it's not easy, but good to hear people's ideas and thoughts. Would be pretty sweet!

I think it is valuable to have multiple users with multiple devices for local (device) playback, but in jukebox mode I think whenver the same audio hardware is used for multiple users (my WHS has just one soundcard), then either this audio hardware needs to be locked for the duration remote control is active on one of the usérs devices, or all devices linked to this hardware should show the same state consistently.
Does this make sense?
Best regards, jol

Subsonic runs on Windows, Linux, Android, and is almost the best music system,
except for a few bugs that stop it working in real life.

Queue a few songs on the Jukebox from your android, and then open Subsonic on a PC, or your tablet, or another housmembers Android.
You will find that the play queue is empty, and any attempt to add a song will kill the current music.

Why can't the (Android, web, PC) client load the current queue from the server and allow civilised adding of songs?

People move from device to device, and people like to listen to music together.

This is the BIG feature that would realy cement Subsonic as a serious music platform, all the rest is just garnish.


Please give it some thought Andre.

P.S. I have been ranting on this subject for a while:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=8324

and others are thinking the same:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=11318

So you felt the need to make yet another thread about this?

Thanks daneren - posts moved to original thread

This feature would be awesome! Anything that improves user interactivity is a +1 in my book.

This is a great idea, I would love to see something like this as well. Also I thought of something along the same lines. I throw a party and have people over, I use my computer as my main source of playing music for the house. Its the server hosting the music. I have 5 friends who currently have usernames and log ins to my server and use the phone app to access my library. I also use my phone to play the music using the remote control feature so it plays through my PC. As it is now anyone can start their own playlist and it overrides mine but what if we had the ability where everyone can add tracks to the current playlist and everyone in my group can see that playlist currently playing. Maybe even have a feature created that allows everyone to pick a certain number of tracks (like on a jukebox) and once someone picks them the next person is alerted and they get to add a few more and so on and so on. Everyone I know loves picking music and would get a kick out of this if it was ever something that could be created.